Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-08754 on 14 June 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

As part of our Programme for Government commitment to provide the people of Scotland with the information they need to make an informed choice about their future, I am pleased to advise Parliament that the Scottish Government is today publishing Independence in the Modern World. Wealthier, Happier, Fairer: Why Not Scotland?

This is the first paper in the Building a New Scotland prospectus series designed to inform the debate on Scotland’s future. The paper sets out how other European countries comparable to Scotland use their full powers of independence to tailor policies to their own specific circumstances and in doing so outperform the UK across a range of indicators. The Building a New Scotland papers will set out the vision for a fairer, more prosperous and greener Scotland and, taken together, will form a prospectus for how an independent Scotland could work.

Independence in the Modern World. Wealthier, Happier, Fairer: Why Not Scotland? is available to view on the Scottish Government website from today :

• http://www.gov.scot/newscotland

The Scottish Government wants to ensure the quality, fairness and consistency of social care support provision regardless of where people live in Scotland.

Eligibility criteria can be a barrier to accessing social care support. We want the focus to be on people getting the support they need when they need it, not on eligibility. The Scottish Government is committed to overhauling the current mechanism of eligibility criteria. We set out proposals for doing this in the National Care Service consultation and will be working with partners and stakeholders to co-design the development of alternative approaches.

Information about the levels of debt on school meals across Scotland is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. The handling of school meal debts is a matter for local authorities, taking into account the local needs and circumstances of all families within their respective local areas.

The Scottish Government recognises the work which has been undertaken by Aberlour on this issue and the First Minister has committed that officials will work with COSLA to understand this issue more fully.

A Culture Strategy for Scotland highlights the Scottish Government commitment to ensuring everyone has an equal opportunity to experience culture’s empowering and transformative potential. We want to ensure that everyone in Scotland can take part in culture throughout their lives and that culture in, and from, Scotland enriches the lives of people and communities across the country.

The innovative Creative Communities programme, Creative Communities - Inspiring Scotland , was launched following the publication of the Culture Strategy in 2020 which supports and empowers individuals and communities to further develop their own cultural activity.

The Culture Strategy sets out that those who engage in cultural activity as children are more likely to participate and attend when they are adults, regardless of parental background, wealth or poverty. Our long-standing Youth Music Initiative offers a year’s free music tuition to all children before they leave primary school, as well as targeted opportunities for out of school participation in music for children and young people who may not otherwise have these opportunities. Additionally, our Youth Arts Emergency Fund offered similar targeted opportunities across a range of art forms.

The provision of community pharmacy pharmaceutical services are made according to arrangements set out in the NHS (Pharmaceutical Services) (Scotland) Regulations 2009. Under this, decisions are a matter for NHS Health Boards, through their Pharmacy Practices Committee (PPC). The process is independent of Scottish Ministers and Government.

The Scottish Government expects all women to receive high quality, safe care including in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of pre-eclampsia.

The Scottish Perinatal Network has been tasked with examining the adoption of PlGF testing in light of the draft NICE guidance published for consultation in March this year and we expect the finalised guidance to be published on 27 July 2022.

As part of its initial work, the Network is engaging with the clinical and scientific community to understand how the additional two tests included in the draft guidance work in practice. This work is underway and I have asked my officials to continue working with the Network to explore how we can best implement PlGF testing in Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not stipulate the maximum or minimum number of patients that can access a community pharmacy. Health Boards are responsible for the provision of pharmaceutical care services within their areas, taking into consideration neighbourhood, the adequacy of existing pharmaceutical services in the area and the necessity and desirability of approving an application to secure adequate pharmaceutical services in the area.

Community pharmacy owners are responsible for ensuring that pharmacies are safe and effective for pharmacy teams and patients. This includes setting safe staffing levels in line with the guidance provided by the regulator, The General Pharmaceutical Council.

Housing to 2040 sets out Scotland’s first ever long-term national housing strategy with a vision for what we want housing to look like and how it will be provided to the people of Scotland. As such, it sets out how we will take housing policy forward over the long term and this means that not all actions are intended to be taken forward at the same time. This action point relates to wider work which is in progress towards the new tenure-neutral housing standard for Scotland; an Equalities Impact Assessment is being developed and initial engagement with stakeholders is underway. We aim to produce a draft standard in 2023 and to progress legislation in 2024-25 for phased introduction from 2025-30, in line with Action Point 18 in Housing to 2040. Monitoring occurs through regular reviews of the project workplan and discussions between myself and the Scottish Government officials responsible for developing this new housing standard. The specific action to establish an inclusive programme of retrofitting social homes, with a focus on accessibility, will be addressed in future years as this wider development of the new housing standard progresses.

The Super Sponsor scheme is designed to provide a quick and safe route for displaced people from Ukraine to come to a place of sanctuary by removing the need for applicants to be matched to an individual sponsor prior to being given permission to travel to the UK.

Once people have arrived, a national matching service, delivered by COSLA, will match those settling here with longer-term accommodation across Scotland.

Displaced people from Ukraine are asked to complete a short questionnaire that captures key information and preferences. This information is then used to find suitable longer-term accommodation. All 32 of our local authorities are taking part in this programme, and hosts have offered up their homes right across the country. The national matching service will ensure that people are offered settlement opportunities across Scotland, recognising that people will have different preferences and available housing is limited in some local authorities.